Anna said little during our meal and made a small effort to push her food around the plate without actually eating anything. She refused her wine and took only small sips of water from her glass. At that point, satisfied with her talents in cataloging the mysterious assets about the house, I didn’t personally care if she was a lagging conversationalist or a picky eater. The Whateley job was moving along swimmingly and I was soon to be homeward-bound again.
But, what I did find mildly disquieting was her strongly-focused attention on the roiling waters below the balcony. She listened intently, as if the gurgling Miskatonic spoke to her directly and gave up all its little secrets.
As Anna was quietly preoccupied with the sounds of the water, I spent my time listening to the hauntingly beautiful chatter of the whippoorwills in the night and watching the dim flashes of fireflies in the distant brush. After our strange, quiet little dinner, I excused myself and went promptly to bed.
In the stillness of the countryside, I am a nervous sleeper. However, the wine I consumed with dinner had a profound effect on me and I fell easily into a deep slumber and dreamt of floating naked along the dark waters of the Miskatonic under the cover of the tall trees above.
In fact, my sleep was so deep that I didn’t hear the door to my room open in the night. I heard no creaking from the old wooden floor beneath her bare feet. Nor did I feel the bedclothes move as she crawled her way toward me. I only woke when I felt her cold hand pressing against my bare chest.
I awoke with a start, my heart immediately racing. Anna sat on her knees next to me. I assumed that something was terribly wrong.
“What is it, Anna?” I asked with a nervous tremble to my voice. I felt hot, my ears burned.
She said nothing. I stared at her until my eyes adjusted to the dark. Anna was wearing a thin cotton slip nightgown, untied, open to her navel. Her eyes were large and insistent. And she was dripping wet from head to toe. I could smell the dank water from the river on her body and on her breath. I could clearly see the skin of her belly and breasts through the wet nightshirt. Her nipples were as pale as the rest of her flesh. They would have been undetectable but for the fact that they were stiffly pressed against the nightshirt that clung wet to her body.
I couldn’t breathe. My heart thumped in my chest. My brow went slick with sweat. But I didn’t move; I was captive to those dark eyes.
“Why are you so wet?” I asked. “Where have you been? The river?”
Anna said nothing in reply. With her hand firmly on my chest, she rose on her knees and let her nightgown slowly fall from her shoulders, slide down past her slender waist, and drop to her knees.
I took a quick breath and stared at Anna’s beautiful nude form.
Her body was pale and thin, with skin like alabaster. She had small firm breasts and beautifully long limbs. Her belly was smooth and flat. Her waist was tiny, with pronounced hip bones at the edges. Below her navel was a small patch of pubic hair that was so light in color it was almost imperceptible against the cleft of her sex.
As she drew breaths, her ribs showed through her flesh — but her thinness was not unattractive. No, she was captivating and desirable and hovering naked over my body in the soft moonlight that played through the folds of the curtains on the east window.
“You’re so beautiful,” I said, hardly able to find a voice above a whisper.
Anna slid her hand down my chest and pulled the sheets below my waist — exposing me. My stomach fluttered. My breath came in short gasps. As she straddled my hips, she turned her head to one side and back again, letting her hair sway in wet tangles about her neck and shoulders. I felt her cold buttocks and pubis against my abdomen.
I was nervous, shaking slightly, and beginning to feel a little ill. In all my twenty-six years, I had little experience with women on the whole — and no experience with naked women at all.
Anna’s cold hands slid up my stomach and over my bare chest. Her unnaturally cool touch was comforting on my hot, tense body. Her eyes were wide and her gaze intense. The way that she held herself aloft over my body, married with her silence and expressionless gaze, made me think that she was in a kind of trance. But before I could doubt that she was fully aware of her acts, Anna leaned down, only inches from my face, and spoke.
“Open your mouth to me,” she said.
I drew a breath and paused. “I — I don’t understand,” I replied nervously.
Anna moved closer still. Her wet hair fell cold against my warm neck and shoulders. I could feel her nipples, small and hard, pressed against my chest. She caressed my ear with her soft, cool lips as she spoke again.
“The mouth is the opening to the whole of the body,” she said. “Open your mouth to me.”
Anna slid her hands up to my temples and held my perspiring head in her cool palms. Her mouth was now hovering over my lips. Slowly, obediently, I opened my mouth. And for the first time since we met — I saw Anna smile.
Anna’s knees closed quickly against my hips, holding me firm. With a swift movement, she rotated her hands and pressed her thumbs into my cheeks and held my jaw painfully open. I jerked once in surprise and went tense. Anna opened her mouth frighteningly-wide and leaned forward. Her tongue extended and her eyes snapped shut.
What happened next, I could scarcely believe; from Anna’s mouth and tongue ran a foul, stinging, salty fluid that filled my mouth and ran cold down my throat. It tasted of bile and seawater and dark venom. It burned the back of my throat and made my lips numb.
Anna clutched my jaw tighter and held it in place, as I swallowed and choked and spattered both our faces with remnants of the vile liquid.
As I writhed under her naked body and gagged, Anna sat up quickly, drew a long screeching breath and released me. I arched my back and tossed her to the edge of the bed. She rolled on to her knees again and perched herself at the corner of the bed. She stared at me with eager eyes and a wide, toothy grin.
Wild with terror and confusion, I opened my mouth to shout at her. Only a garbled croaking sound came from my throat. My neck and jaw went numb.
Anna leaned forward. Her horrific smile frightened me further.
“Don’t try to speak,” she commanded. “It works quickly.”
I clutched my throat and struggled to sit up. I lost feeling in my feet and fingertips. Anna moved in closer.
“Relax, Mr. Combs,” she said with a soft voice. “You can’t fight against fate.”
Naked, unable to scream, and rapidly losing feeling throughout my body, I tried to kick myself free of the remaining covers tangled around my legs. I pushed myself off the bed and landed hard on my back with a crash.
I was still tangled in a pile of sheets on the floor when Anna crept to the edge of the bed and peered down at me.
“You’re almost ready,” she said with a smile. “Your fear will soon subside and then you will know the wonder and the glory I’ve prepared for you.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and seeing. I was still breathing, still functioning internally, but I could no longer move my limbs. My body was paralyzed.
Anna disappeared from view. I heard her leave the bed, cross the floor and open the door to the room. When she returned and appeared around the edge of the bed, she was in her wet nightgown again. Behind her came a shuffle of other footsteps and I saw Barnabas, two unknown men and three unknown women appear over my naked body.
They reached down and lifted me up by my arms and legs. Unable to move or speak, I was carried out of the room, down through the house, and through the open cellar door.